A London councillor today reignited the debate about the way that British citizenship is awarded by claiming that too many applicants who cannot speak English properly are qualifying.

Peter Golds, who sits on Tower Hamlets council and has handed out hundreds of citizenship certificates in east London in the past six years, said he feared that the achievements of thousands of deserving migrants were being “cheapened” by the lax standards applied in some cases.

He said that some people that he had witnessed receiving citizenship spoke very poor English or were “not really interested” in the ceremonies.

Mr Golds’s claims, which follow an announcement by ministers that tighter language test will be introduced next year for non-European migrants wanting to come to the UK, will prompt renewed discussion of the rules governing migration and citizenship.

Applicants for British citizenship are expected to have reached an “adequate” level of English and pass a test about life in the UK.

Under the previous government, hundreds of thousands of migrants were granted citizenship in a bid by ministers to encourage integration and the commitment of overseas arrivals to this country.

Coalition ministers have pledged to tighten the rules to ensure that only those with a genuinely high standard of English and understanding of the British way of life are able to qualify.

But Mr Golds, the leader of Tower Hamlets’ Conservatives, warned today that recent cases in his borough had shown that citizenship was still being awarded too easily. In one case, he said, he presented a certificate to a woman from Afghanistan who could not understand the instruction to raise her hand and repeat the pledge of allegiance.

He said: “It cheapened the whole ceremony. You have to ask why these people are taking out British citizenship. I am concerned that there are some people coming here who are not really interested in doing it compared with others, who are amazingly enthusiastic.

“There are people who are fleeing persecution, when you come up to them they leap up and shake your hand and you realise how important it is to them.”

Share This

We welcome comments that add information or perspective, and we encourage polite debate. If you log in with a social media account, your comment should appear immediately. If you prefer to remain anonymous, you may comment as a guest, using a name and an e-mail address of convenience. Your comment will be moderated.

JackKrak

It’s not entirely true that “migrants don’t care about the UK”.

I’m quite confident that they care deeply about the UK’s apparent obsession with making sure that no one from the more sand and camel-intensive parts of the world goes without a nice, free place to live and plenty of pocket money.

Peter Golds, who sits on Tower Hamlets council and has handed out
hundreds of citizenship certificates in east London in the past six
years, said he feared that the achievements of thousands of deserving
migrants were being “cheapened” by the lax standards applied in some
cases.

That’s just the price of diversity. You can have real standards, or you can have diversity. But you can’t have both.

”Under the previous government, hundreds of thousands of migrants were granted citizenship in a bid by ministers to encourage integration and the commitment of overseas arrivals to this country.”

Garbage, Tony Blair and the labour party brought in 3 or 4 million African and muslim immigrants in to subvert the country.

loyalwhitebriton

You only need to meet one of three qualifications to gain British Citizenship:
1. Be an EU national.
2. Be non-White.
3. Be non-Christian.
That covers (and I’m guesstimating here) about 90% of the worlds population!
And of course many of the new additions don’t really care about Britain; our history (considerable), our culture (global influence), our language (international), our legal system (revolutionary and liberty affirming), our literature (unsurpassed), or anything else about the achievements of this Island off the northwest coast of Europe.
The only thing that the invaders care about is our insanely generous welfare system; which includes free multi-million pound accomodation for Somali “asylum seekers”, 42 inch HD TVs, decorating vouchers, unemployment ‘benefit’, child ‘benefit’, and myriad other handouts given to people who have contributed absolutely zero to our society!

splitsing

Too little, too late. The Brits are damned. Someone play taps for that lot.

3rworlders can not support a 1stworld enviroment. If they could they would do so in their homelands. Some of these people leave mud huts only to complain that 6 bedroom taxpayer paid council houses are not good enough for them. 1stworld nations are getting flooded with 3rdworlders who have no capacity to do anything in the 1stworld other than collect benefits and eventually vote for more benefits.

When they outnumber the taxpayers they will always vote for more goodies. The taxpayer eventually will have no say in who gets elected. That’s why I don’t think people getting assistance should vote. They have to much of a vested interest.

All this has to do with the media bullying the little people. The media wants these people in their country so politicians oblige. Most natives don’t want these people but it seems they have no say in anything. Something is wrong in the world when the media is more powerful than the masses. Can we throw out these media types? Can there be a media revolution?

The term ” Great ” Britain is not a boast but refers to the land mass, Greater Britain to distinguish itself from Brittany or ” little ” Brittany now part of France.

The nation has been subverted by Cultural Marxism as ex KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov explains

blindsticks

Why do they keep coming? The majority of Brits have continuously stressed that they dont want any more foreigners or migrants. We dont need them, we dont desire them. But the people that do are the factory and business owners, the land developers and of course the corrupt politicians who can no longer rely on the white voting base.

MartelC

Why would they care about the UK? The left certainly doesn’t. The globalists don’t…. but it’s just common sense, if somehow any Englishman wound in Afganistan as a permanent resident, would they adapt child marrage and taking boy lovers? No. So why do we expect other people to value our past, our values, our culture?

It’s common sense… something the our elite utterly lack – or more likely, they just don’t care.